Trying to get excited about opening day.

[BDinPutnam]

I’ve often sat wondering what a slug would do to a squirrel

I spent a good portion of yesterday wondering the same.

We were out Wed-Fri with crossbow and saw very little. Sat out for gun yesterday, nothing doing, and took care of some shit around the property with a gun nearby today.

Couple of does I had no shot on, a spike I didn't want to take, a bunch of does moving the wrong way and hanging out in the neighbor's yard.

Normally this place (my house) is crawling with deer. I think the storm the other day and the fact it is much colder than usual for this time of year in southern Putnam has them elsewhere in the thicker cover up the block.

After the snow the other day the only tracks I found on my property besides me and my hunting partner and the dogs was a solitary coyote trail, one way, over two days. Not even a squirrel. Over about 4 acres.

ETA: I've also heard very few shots in the surrounding hills.

 

[tapper3]

^^^^ Same here. There are a couple doe and their kids that are always around my property, quite often in my back yard, but have completely disappeared. No tracks since the big snow, no nothing. I think they work off the same calendar that I do.

 

[BDinPutnam]

^^^^ Same here. There are a couple doe and their kids that are always around my property, quite often in my back yard, but have completely disappeared. No tracks since the big snow, no nothing. I think they work off the same calendar that I do.

Whereabouts (roughly)? Just curious. It has been a lot colder, for longer, earlier than I can remember the prior 5 years being here.

 

[tapper3]

Whereabouts (roughly)? Just curious. It has been a lot colder, for longer, earlier than I can remember the prior 5 years being here.


Northern Wayne county.

I wrote earlier about thinking my partner and I wouldn't be able to hunt where we usually go on opening day - wouldn't be able to get off the road and into the farm lane due to the snow. But we did - the landowner cleared the lane for us Friday after the snow quit. Nice guy. But there was still 15" of snow to wade through. LOL

We saw and got deer there. I had a doe and a couple kids come close but not close enough for me to take her. I probably could have but then we would have had to drag her way the hell around a drainage ditch and I'm getting too old for that crap. I was hoping she would come over to my side. One of the kids did but Mama wouldn't.

My partner got a nice medium size 6 point. And around us was some shooting from 6:30 - 7:30 and then again around 9 when hunters got cold and started moving around, I assume. Up here the wind was a lot stronger than predicted. It was in the low 30's but the wind chill was a lot lower than that.

I stayed around home yesterday and there were a few shots early just to the south of me but nothing got pushed my way and then all quiet for the rest of the day so I just sat out back early morning and late afternoon. And I took a stroll around the homestead this morning and never saw a track.

To the north of me is woods that butts into my woods. Mine is about 4 acres and the other is about 8 - with a spring on it that keeps them hanging around. The guy that owned it used to let people hunt on his and they would often move deer around. But that guy died and the property sold and no one hunts it now.

You know how it is -- once all the shooting starts, if they aren't being moved they aren't moving on their own.